Start early to work towards your dream. What better way for students who have an inclination towards entrepreneurship to follow their dream project.

Irish Students Entrepreneurship Forum (ISEF) is a platform that facilitates business development for student entrepreneurs who have innovative ideas. This non-profit platform run by university students host annual multi stage competition to give an opportunity for students to pitch their ideas / start-ups.

After attending the Demo Day at Dogpatch Labs earlier in the day , the pitches by students gave a different perspective to the growing start-ups ecosystem of Ireland.

The finals of ISEF 2024 saw 5 young start-ups competing to win the € 10,000 prize money. The ideas and real life problems aimed by these young minds were really impressive.

The application process started in Oct, 2023. The semi finalists were announced by mid January, 2024.

13 start-ups were part of the semi-finals line up. Soar Water , Safe CAM, Oneband , AIthical , Beam, DigiRoad , Brigaid Net, Medimaestro , Frensei (Phd Peer), MARC, Roster, SkinAware and Dionys.

The semi finalists were judged by Heather Morris, MD, Founders Program, John Sisk, Senior Advisor, Key Capital and Frank Mooney, Corporate Finance Investment Analyst, ISIF.

The five start-ups who made it to the finals of ISEF 2024 : Brigaid Net, Medimaestro , Frensei (Phd Peer), MARC and Dionys.

Brigaid Net aims at offering affordable reliable internet / telecom to people who live in areas which are usually not in the regular telecom network area. They are supported by Nova UCD, UCD and Greentech HQ. In the coming months, they will be going ahead with pilot testing in Bangladesh. Abuthala Alam and Bastien Saidi pitched the idea to the judging panel.

Lorcan O’ Rourke explained the thought process and idea behind starting MediMaestro , who are focusing on rewriting health care education experience. The team already had in place the Go TO Market strategies charted out. Lorcan was supported by Isabella and Eoghan with the pitch.

The third finalist , Frensei, is looking to cater to the niche yet much needed solution of supporting people who are doing their PhDs. The start-up emphasised on the fact that PhD isolation and lack of support is a full blown problem. The start-up is building a peer network who can support fellow researchers. Ali Rizvi had a unique confident style of pitching his idea to the judges and the audience.

Aaron Devitt presented MARC , the management software for tenant inquiries. The pricing of € 3.20 per unit per month with an add on monthly flat fees of € 25 looked to be something the property management companies won’t mind spending for helping them with a much needed solution.

Artificial Intelligence is the go to word everywhere. Dionys is offering Artificial Intelligence enabled tutoring. As per Brian Kelly , 50% of leaving certificate students are taking tutoring and Dionys can offer enhanced solutions in this area.

The start-ups were judged by :

While the judges were compiling the scores of the pitches, there was an informative panel discussion that took place on the stage.

The panel discussion focused on the impact of the macro economic environment on innovation and entrepreneurship in Ireland. The speakers shared their thoughts on the funding support from government, significance of mentorship, advantages of starting up in Ireland, etc. The common agreed point across the speakers was the close knit start-up ecosystem in Ireland which is providing a great platform for budding as well as seasoned founders.

The first award of the night, the award by Goodbody for the Start-up with a focus on Sustainability was won by Saor Water. The third prize for the pitch competition was won by Brigaid Net. Frensei won the second prize. It was the management software platform, MARC, which won the first prize.

The AIB headquarters was buzzing with students enthusiastically listening to the pitches. The confidence and conviction shown by each of the start-up founders / members was incredible. This cohort have great solutions, a lot of time on their side and a great launch pad. It will be interesting to keep an eye on the journey of each of these start-ups. This is just the beginning for all these students who will understand that the start-up world need persistent long term efforts to see success with lots of ups and downs. However , the ecosystem is really wonderful in Ireland and the young minds will find it easy to reach out to industry experts without much trouble.

Last year’s program saw start-ups like PitSeal and The Wonky Woolins in the finals and they have gone ahead to earn many more accolades.

The support provided by AIB, Enterprise Ireland, Scale Ireland, Goodbody, Merleview Capital and CFO Services for this students entrepreneurship platform is commendable.

Start early and utilise the power of networking to keep moving ahead in the start-up world.

_____________________________

Some of the images in the article are picked from ISEF page.